Katherine Trembath has just bought an outback pub for the price of a house in Brisbane.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 73-year-old said she was soaking up retirement in the seaside town of Hervey Bay when the Winton Hotel in central-west Queensland came calling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was doing a trip around Queensland, and I thought, ‘I need to be back out in the country’, came across the pub and thought, ‘Yep, this is the one,'” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Trembath said it was her fourth time “out of retirement,” having owned motels in regional Queensland for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Katherine Trembath has spent the past week learning the ropes from Kevin and Jo Fawcett. (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n
“I like being active and you can’t be more active than running a pub,” she said.<\/p>\n
Accommodation broker David Faiers sold Ms Trembath the hotel and said although she had decided to come out of retirement, the price of housing in coastal areas was a driver for outback pub and hotel sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Faiers was tight-lipped on the final sale price, but he said it was not too far off Brisbane’s median house price of $1.126 million.<\/p>\n
“What’s changed is the cost of housing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“For a hotel like the Winton Hotel, for under $1.5 million, you buy a residence and [you can make] an income.<\/p>\n
“[If] you go to the coast for instance, you don’t get much for a million dollars anymore.”<\/p>\n
In her first week, Ms Trembath said she had learnt that everyone in Winton had a nickname and she was not allowed to change anything in the establishment.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of history on the walls of the hotel, built in 1899.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Winton Hotel in 1907.\u00a0 (Supplied: State Library of Queensland)<\/p>\n
“I won’t change anything; I’ll just enhance it,” Ms Trembath said.<\/p>\n
“This is a family pub where locals can relax and enjoy the atmosphere.”<\/p>\n
Former owners Kevin and Jo Fawcett said they wanted to hand over the keys to the right person after running the hotel for 27 years.<\/p>\n
“We turned away 10 or 12 prospective buyers until we found a nice lady to take the reins,” Mr Fawcett said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“That was important to us.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jo and Kevin Fawcett sold the Winton Hotel to Katherine Trembath. (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n
He said it was their turn to retire to the coast.<\/p>\n
“The fish and mud crabs are calling my name of a night-time,” Mr Fawcett said.<\/p>\n
‘Live and do business’<\/p>\n
Winton, a town of fewer than 1,000 people, boasts four pubs.<\/p>\n
But the tourist season between May and October means thousands of thirsty travellers pass through.<\/p>\n
In the past 12 months, Mr Faiers has sold two pubs and a motel in Winton.<\/p>\n
He said sales across Queensland had been exceptional.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
David Faiers says hospitality businesses such as hotels and motels are a place to live and a source of income. (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n
“The market is very strong; there’s a lot of natural migration,” he said.<\/p>\n
“People have identified that hospitality businesses, both hotels, motels and caravan parks, are a good source of income; it’s a growing market, it’s somewhere to live and do business.”<\/p>\n
In the nearby town of Longreach, a privately owned Australian hotel and property group has been snapping up businesses.<\/p>\n
Waymark Hotels now owns two pubs and a restaurant in the popular tourist town.<\/p>\n
But Winton sales have remained with individual buyers.<\/p>\n
Bernie Hogan, chief executive of the Queensland Hotels Association, said interest in regional hotels had increased in the past 18 months.<\/p>\n
“I think people have realised what great businesses they are, what great investments they can be \u2026 and, as always, people \u2026 are looking for that change of lifestyle,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There are many success stories of people heading west and loving it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Australian Hotel in Winton was sold earlier this year.\u00a0 (ABC Western Qld: Hannah Walsh)<\/p>\n
But Mr Hogan said running a regional pub was still challenging, with rising costs and transient staff.<\/p>\n
Mr Faiers said sales worked in a cyclical nature.<\/p>\n
“It’s pretty typical what we see in the market \u2014 when somebody sells a business, other local business people are surprised with the value \u2026 it makes them start to think about their position and what their next steps are,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The cost of buildings [are] not dissimilar to housing, it’s hard to get something built.<\/p>\n
“That’s helped the older buildings and businesses become more valuable, the structure is already in place.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katherine Trembath has just bought an outback pub for the price of a house in Brisbane.\u00a0 The 73-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[70923,64,63,99,49090,17536,10930,115185,165814,63158,15927,165813],"class_list":["post-287451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-accommodation","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-hospitality","tag-hotel","tag-house-prices","tag-outback-pub","tag-outback-sales","tag-pub","tag-sales","tag-winton-hotel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}